Popular low-price grocery program celebrates first year

When Audrey Foley runs out of food for her four cats, or struggles to pay for groceries for her and her mother, she turns to a community-managed store in her neighbourhood.

Her list contains the staples: bread, pasta, juice — all sold through the the Jason Schreyer Memorial Grocery Affordable Access Program, at prices far below what you’d find at a supermarket.

Foley said the program has made a substantial difference in her family’s ability to get by as the cost of living continues to rise.

“I would do without things if I had to,” Foley, 52, said Friday. “It’s very beneficial, overall, because the prices are very reasonable.”

The program, named after the late Elmwood-East Kildonan city councillor who first put forward the idea, will celebrate its first anniversary Saturday. Its premise is simple: volunteers purchase groceries in bulk at sale costs from local stores, store them in a warehouse, and sell them at least 25 per cent below the going price.

It’s been so popular in the city’s East End, a second location opened in the West End in the spring.

Chris Sweryda, Schreyer’s former assistant, leads the program with his partner, Melissa Hallett. He calls it a “bridge program” for people who may not require food bank support, but are struggling to keep up with rising grocery prices.

“We’re supposed to be a safety net for those that are at risk of landing in a food bank, and we’re supposed to be a path out of a food bank,” he said.

Clientele has exploded in its first year. The program ran out of Morse Place Community Centre in its early days, but quickly outgrew the space. It’s now run out of the St. Gerard School gymnasium at 40 Foster St., on the first, third and fifth Saturday of each month from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The second location, at Valour Community Centre at 448 Burnell St., is open on the first, third and fifth Thursday of the month from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Cash or e-transfer are accepted.

“We’re getting people from all over. The program has been a huge success, and we’re still growing,” Sweryda said. “We need to look at maybe finding another location in Elmwood, because it’s getting very hard to even manage the lineups anymore.”

Volunteers and support from a number of local businesses has kept the program going. Safeway Canada is the primary supporter, Sweryda said, noting the business has “moved mountains,” including helping volunteers find the lowest prices possible for bulk grocery orders, holding on to food for them in their warehouses and sponsoring the anniversary celebration.

“The store that I deal with, they even sell a lot of stuff to me at a loss, or right at dead break even. They just eat the cost of shipping it to the store and holding it, and distributing it to us,” Sweryda said.

Volunteers also do what they can to get food to people who need it. Foley said she has had food dropped off at her home as she uses a walker and sometimes struggles to make it in-person. Several people also oversee group orders for senior homes or housing complexes. Occasionally, they’ll give away food if someone is in urgent need.

Sweryda has been approached by others asking how to open a grocery program of their own. While he would like to see new branches across the city’s highest-need areas, there aren’t any resources to expand right now.

“When people e-transfer, they’ll hold their phone up to me to show me that it went through, and I see bank accounts that are in the negatives or have less than $10 in them, we get a lot of people that come in (and) $20 is all they can afford to spend,” he said.

“I do know there’s a lot of people struggling, and we do serve a lot of them.”

Daniel McIntyre Coun. Cindy Gilroy watched the project expand in Elmwood, and, wanting to see a similar shop in the West End, worked to open the Valour Community Centre site.

“They really say that it has really reduced their costs, we’ve had families even crying, because they’re seeing that impact,” she said.

As other levels of government mull ways to ease the pain of food prices, including the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit and the province’s plan to mandate unit pricing in stores, Gilroy said the city has a role to play, too.

“A perfect role could be the community centre access, to be able to utilize the centres … If we could utilize some of the spaces within the community centres that we have, that is a big help and support to keep these programs going,” she said. “That could be a way that the city can help with some of these costs.”

Saturday’s anniversary festivities will be held at St. Gerard School at noon. The scheduled grocery program will open as usual.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca